2020 Update: SPARC Landscape Analysis & Roadmap for Action

Table of Contents

• Executive Summary

  1 min read

  In the year since our initial analysis major companies have shifted away from research publishing and towards research assessment; from individual research distribution to consolidated models and the emergence of a “Bigger Deal,” where institutional content licensing is directly linked to the purchase of data analytics services.

• Background

  2 mins read

  What does the landscape, and path to action, look like one year after our initial analysis?

• Update to The Landscape Analysis

  11 mins read

  The uncertainty surrounding COVID-19’s impact on research funding may well affect open access publishing specifically.

• Publicly Listed Companies

  3 mins read

  The companies that are fully or partially owned by private equity (PE) companies (Springer Nature Group, McGraw-Hill Education and Cengage), all have significant debt.

• The Effect of the Failed Cengage/McGraw-Hill Education Merger

  1 min read

  The decision to abandon their merger because of the divestitures required by the Department of Justice (DOJ) has left the companies with a more complicated future.

• Emerging Concerns: A Shift from Research Publishing to Research Assessment

  3 mins read

  We're concerned by new initiatives with inherent conflicts of interest between assessing and evaluating research, on the one hand, and disseminating it, on the other.

• Emerging Concerns: From Individual to Communal Research Distribution

  3 mins read

  The recently released GetFTR has several concerning disadvantages, both operational and strategic, for academic institutions and, in particular, for academic libraries.

• Emerging Concerns: The Bigger Deal

  7 mins read

  Novel agreements like the Elsevier/Dutch Institution deal are highly problematic and concerning. Institutions and consortia should consider and robustly debate the ramifications of these decisions, before pursuing what may prove to be partial and short-lived benefits.

• Update to the Roadmap for Action

  10 mins read

  Acting in conditions of high uncertainty is particularly difficult. These are actions that libraries, in particular, and academic institutions, in general, could take regardless of the current situation.

• A Time for Radical Change

  2 mins read

  Use this opportunity not just to reopen the current academic system but also to make substantive progress toward building a more equitable and open one.

• Appendix: Scholarly Journals

  4 mins read

  The scholarly journals business is still on a path to raising its profitability, but pricing pressures will intensify and we see substantial stagnation of subscription revenues.

• Appendix: Courseware

  3 mins read

  Can digital revenues return the courseware business to growth or will they be insufficient to compensate the accelerated decline of print revenues?

• Appendix: The Industry Response

  4 mins read

  Most of the leading publishers strengthened their digital and data analytics offerings in 2019, and have continued to do so into 2020.